Where We Run
by Ridley C. James
Summary: Tag for Episode S2:10 War Room & Ship. Mac decides he wants to talk and knows just who to turn to.


Where We Run

By: Ridley

A/N: Because I can't leave well enough along, especially, well-when it's just not enough. This is kind of a short one, because I am truly working on two Christmas stories. I'm sure there will be others to tackle the missing holes in this episode, but I at least had to give us a little Mac and Jack. Enjoy!

RcJ

At first Jack Dalton believed the pounding he heard to be inside his head, a painful consequence of all the beer he'd consumed during his man to man session with Elwood Davis. They'd drunk way more than they'd talked before Jack had called the guy a car and sent him on his merry way. The two had come to a truce and Jack had agreed he- like Riley- was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt, but even taking a ten thousand dollar ass whooping wasn't enough to earn Elwood an invitation to crash on Jack's couch. History was history, but the man had hurt one of Jack's pack and that was a trespass that could not be so easily forgiven by any self-respecting Alpha. Jack thought it was extremely generous on his part that he'd shared his beer, sacrificed another bag of frozen peas for the trip _and_ paid Uber fare along with giving a generous tip for the driver's guarantee he'd help Elwood inside once they arrived at the crap motel he was staying.

"Well, hell," Jack growled when the pounding resounded again. He forced his eyes open, searching the room for the source of his aggravation. He wasn't sure if he should be relieved or pissed that the noise was coming from the front of the house and definitely not from within his skull. One bleary look at his cell phone which read half past three convinced him to go with the latter. He'd only just gone to bed a couple of hours before, which did not bode well for whomever was banging on his door.

"I'm coming!" He yelled, throwing back his comforter to make it out of the warm bed. Navigating the familiar landscape in the dark, he swore as his foot collided with the hilt of his Katana sword that had been haphazardly discarded on the floor. Jack wished he'd given Elwood his 'respecting people's property' rant along with the other nuggets of wisdom on being responsible and keeping one's promises which he'd doled out earlier.

Jack grabbed his gun from the table by the door to his room just in case their little reuse with the baseball had been discovered and Elwood's goon friend, Dougie, had come around to collect the debt another way. Jack might have respected Riley's old man for taking his comeuppance, but he wasn't about to take a beat down for the sorry bastard, not when he had a gun and a vast knowledge of the law that would have him placing a body just so if he by chance needed to put a bullet in one. Jack opened the door prepared for the worst, but was caught off guard by the presence of his best friend.

"Mac? What the hell…"

Mac didn't comment on the gun Jack was holding on him this time. In fact, he didn't say anything as he brushed past the older agent to enter.

Jack closed the door, following the kid into the living room. "What happened to family not knocking or better yet, how about people who actually have a key to the place use said key instead of waking all the neighbors in the middle of the freaking night?"

Mac tilted his head at the gun Jack held in response and the older agent sighed. Admittedly, walking into his house unexpectedly _especially in the middle of the night_ wasn't as advisable as dropping by Mac's place unannounced.

"Right." Jack put the gun on the island, turning on a lamp to study his partner, who had yet to speak. Mac was wearing basketball shorts and an old Army t-shirt which Jack was fairly certain had been his at one time if the hole in the side had in fact been made by a bullet and was not merely a sign of wear and tear. The kid's hair was damp with sweat as was his face and neck. His partner's state of disarray and the fact he was obviously agitated was enough to drive away Jack's thoughts of getting back to sleep. He arched up a brow. "Did you run here, bud?"

"Yeah," Mac said offhandedly as if the eleven mile jaunt was a light stroll. He waved away Jack's muttered 'damn' and met his partner's concerned gaze. "I can't remember his name, Jack."

"Whose name?" Jack frowned, running a hand over his face. He took a step closer to the kid, who looked completely wrecked as if he were confessing some horrible crime instead of admitting to a simple slip of the mind. Jack wasn't sure what was up with his partner but if his Mac radar was on point as usual, it wasn't anything good, far from it in fact, gauging by the look of torment on Mac's face.

"How can I not remember his name?" Mac started a tight pace in front of Jack's recliner. He ran both hands through his hair, his face pale. "I mean after what he did for us. What the hell is wrong with me?"

Jack wanted an immediate answer to that last question himself so he could promptly get on fixing it but decided that figuring out the first might give him a clearer picture as to why Mac had practically run a half marathon instead of merely picking up the phone. "Maybe you could give me a clue as to what's got you so worked up because I'm not exactly following. Is this about your dad? Or that image of Matty on the film?"

"This isn't about my dad. It's about the guy from Kandar, damn it." Mac stopped again, a huff escaping him this time as his desperation tipped just this side of angry. He sent Jack a glower of frustration as if the older agent was not supplying what he needed quickly enough. Jack had seen his partner give the same exasperated expression to slow connecting computers and sluggish vending machines. Fortunately, mention of the village in the Abbottabad District of Pakistan was the only reference Jack needed to at least offer a guess at what the kid was after.

"Are you talking about Kyle Brewer?" Jack folded his arms over his chest, frowning.

"Yes." Mac flopped into Jack's recliner as if it were the bottom of an old John boat and he was some giant catfish Jack had just freed from a fishing net. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. "Sergeant Kyle Brewer from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division," Mac murmured, his fingers pulling slightly at his hair. "How the hell did I forget that?"

Jack took a seat on the edge of the table by the chair, resting a hand on Mac's shoulder. The kid's muscles were practically reverberating with tension. "What's going on, brother?"

"I forgot his name." Mac lifted his head, his eyes even more pain-filled than before. Jack's chest tightened and he felt that old daunting helplessness that was becoming all too common an emotion these days when it came to his partner. "I completely blanked."

"Okay." Jack was still a bit lost, but remembering Kyle and what had happened to the man was slowly beginning to paint a picture of what could be going on with his best friend. Brewer had run his Bradley full on into a barricaded group of heavily armed insurgents drawing fire to save his pinned down brothers but lost his own life in the process. It wasn't such a reach to draw parallels to a young woman sacrificing herself so a group of students would have a shot at survival. What Jack didn't understand was exactly how his genius, too hard on himself, partner had somehow twisted the two scenarios so that he was apparently coming out the bad guy. He squeezed the kid's shoulder. "But that was over six years ago, kid, and it wasn't exactly one of those moments that a guy wants to tuck away in a nice photo album to pull out at parties if you know what I mean."

"You remembered." Mac sat up straighter, shrugging away from Jack's touch as if he didn't deserve any reprieve or lord forbid any comfort. His voice held no real accusation, at least not for Jack, but the older agent easily heard the self-recrimination in his best friend's tone.

"Yeah, possibly because I have about one hundredth of the things banging around in my head that you have going through your ginormous brain at any given time." Jack tried for a smile, but received a deeper scowl for his trouble. He gave a frown of his own at his partner's stubbornness. "And I wasn't suffering from one hell of a concussion when all that went down. Cut yourself some slack."

"A concussion is no excuse!" Mac stood quickly, resuming his pacing again. His hands tightly fisted. "The man died for us, Jack! He consciously made a choice to give his life so we would have a chance to escape. I haven't thought of him in years, _years_ , and today, I couldn't even conjure a picture of his face, or remember the way his voice sounded, let alone recall his fucking name. What does that say about me?"

"It says you're human, Mac. Just like the rest of us." Jack was beginning to think he'd made a huge mistake by not heading for Mac's place as soon as Riley had filled him in on what had happened with the ship, but his partner had been so adamant on the phone about needing some space and from the way Matty had recounted her failed attempts at engaging any kind of conversation Jack figured it was best to back off for a little bit, at least one night. Mac had sworn to Jack he was okay. Even though Jack knew that was far from true, it had been the kid's tone and the soft _'please, Jack'_ that had finally convinced Jack that for once he needed not to hover, that rushing in with some wise words and pizza wasn't what was called for in this case. Jack understood- even if it went against all his protective instincts- that sometimes he had to let Mac come to him. He just hadn't expected it to be in the middle of the night, or that his best friend would have wound himself up into such a state beforehand.

"Being flesh and blood doesn't give me the right to dishonor what Kyle did," Mac continued berating himself as he walked a few frantic steps only to turn and start back. His hands curling and uncurling. "To act as if he wasn't even important. It totally negates what he did."

"Mac, damn it. Stop for a minute." Jack stood, stepping in front of the kid's path as Mac's breaths grew shorter and quicker. Instead of cooling down from the run, he seemed to have broken out in another sweat, and his skin was practically translucent. "It's not like Kyle would have wanted you to spend your days rehashing his death, man…"

"I should have at least remembered him!" Mac swore angrily. He tried to side-step his partner, but Jack caught the back of his shirt redirecting him towards one of the wooden barstools in front of the island.

"How about you give the pacing a rest before you wear a hole in my floor." Jack gestured to the chair. The last thing he needed was for the kid to have a full blown panic attack or worse completely crash when the temporary adrenaline burst failed him.

"I'm fine, Jack." Mac insisted, despite obviously being revved to the point of flying apart like some car engine boosted with more nitro than it was built to handle.

"Well, I'm still half asleep." Jack ran a hand over face, trying a new tactic. "I might also be a bit hungover so trying to keep track of your tennis match motions is making me nauseous." He gestured to the chair again. "Can we please just take a seat like civilized people, instead of you prowling around like you were raised by…"

"Wolves?" Mac filled in before Jack could finish. "Or at least one lone wolf?"

"Cute." Jack smirked, immensely relieved that the kid would even attempt a joke in his worked up state. The typical smart ass remark gave Jack a glimmer of hope that his misstep of not forcing the kid to have a heart to heart earlier could be remedied. He was bolstered further when his partner finally sat down, although Mac promptly started bouncing his foot and working at a loose thread on his shorts.

"How about you just take a few deep breaths and shake it off, brother." Jack pulled the other stool over so that he and Mac were practically knee to knee. He didn't like the way his partner's breathing was still a bit ragged or the hint of wildness lingering in his blue eyes. This whole ship incident couldn't have come at a worst time in Jack's opinion. He was glad Mac had helped the students and was sorry as hell about the young scientist dying, but he was more concerned at the moment with _his_ scientist and just how much shit the kid was going to be able to take before he caught a freaking break. "I don't know why this thing with Brewer has gotten you so riled up, but I can promise you that you're probably overthinking whatever it is you've got running on a loop inside that noggin."

"Like you thought I was jumping at shadows about the film earlier?" Mac narrowed his gaze. "Kyle gave his life for us, Jack. How can you say I'm overreacting now?"

"Oh, I don't know, Mac." Jack made a point of finding his partner's gaze before continuing. "Maybe because I get you better than just about anyone and I understand all too well that if you're left to your own devices you tend to build up things bigger in your head than they actually need to be. Sort of like the life-sized ship you constructed at Phoenix when no one was around to keep you in check." Jack could easily relate his best friend's mental workings to what had transpired in the War Room when Mac broke out the window to expand the area for his true to scale model. Mac didn't let little things like walls or healthy defense mechanisms stop him from working something out. Jack often gave his partner a hard time about how cell phones, cars and even office space tended to suffer in the wake of his manic machinations, but it was only when Mac's heart was taking a beating that Jack took true offense.

"There is no bigger sacrifice than when someone gives their life for another person, Jack. You know that." Mac's tone was softer now, some of the tension and urgency seeming to have dissipated under a deeper seriousness, a gravity that spoke to the true heart of the matter. Mac was desperate to make sense of what had happened, still reaching for ways to make it right.

"What I know is that this here," Jack motioned to Mac, tilting his head to catch the younger man's eye. "Has a whole lot more to do with your new friend Zoey, than it does with Kyle Brewer."

Mac acted as if he hadn't heard Jack, although the older agent didn't miss how the kid flinched or the way a fresh wave of pain flooded the kid's blue gaze at the mention of the glaciologist's name. Mac shook his head, and continued on stubbornly about Brewer. "What if I haven't honored what he did? I should have found a way to somehow pay him back and…"

"Hey now." Jack reached out, gripping the back of Mac's neck, before the kid could get going again. He waited for his best friend to look at him. "You honored what Brewer did by making it out of that godforsaken desert in one piece. You pay him back every single day you wake up breathing, son. You have paid tribute to his memory countless times over with every life you have saved through the years since, and you did it again today by helping rescue those thirty one kids from that ship."

"It should have been thirty two." Mac hung his head, but not before Jack caught the hurt that once more raced across his face. Jack wasn't sure how some guys like Elwood Davis didn't seem to have any natural comprehension of what it was to be responsible and a kid like Mac was way too inclined to accept the world's share. "And it was Zoey who saved them."

"I know, buddy." Jack lifted his hand from the kid's neck, running it over his partner's hair with a heavy sigh that had Mac lifting his gaze to the older agent's once more.

"I tried everything. I swear. I wanted to save her, Jack." Mac's eyes filled, his lip trembling slightly. He reached out a hand and latched onto the front of Jack's shirt like a lifeline. "I wanted it so damn bad."

"Of course you did, kiddo." Jack recognized the moment his partner's defenses receded just enough for him to offer that much deserved solace that Mac so often shied away from. He pulled the younger man into a hard hug, surprised when Mac didn't hold back but accepted the rescue, burying his face against Jack's shoulder.

"I failed the mission. I failed her."

"Bud," Jack breathed, wishing like hell he could just wrap his partner in bullet proof glass and some kind of emotional shield of Teflon to buffer some of the awful crap that always seemed to find its way to his doorstep. "You can't save every damn body. Trust me. What you did do was give Zoey the chance to save thirty one people she cared about, people who would have gone into the same watery grave she died in, if not for you, Mac." Jack squeezed Mac's neck gently, feeling the kid's warm puffs of breath against his shoulder." Kids who _will_ remember her when they go on to do amazing things and might even save a few lives themselves. It's the same kind of gift that Brewer gave us all those years ago and it sure as hell wasn't no kind of failure. Far from it, man. It might not seem like it now, but this one was a win."

Mac pulled back then, his bright gaze meeting Jack's. "Zoey said she was doing the same thing I would have done if I'd been there."

"Was she wrong?" Jack asked, swallowing the lump that sprung to his throat at the mere idea of Mac succumbing to such a fate. He might be able to accept not everyone was meant to be saved, but he would never admit that list might someday include the kid sitting in front of him.

"No. Probably not." Mac shook his head, letting go of Jack's shirt to wipe a hand over his eyes. "But it still pisses me off."

"Welcome to my world." Jack reached out and ruffled the kid's hair, earning him the kind of glower he didn't mind. "Watching someone else take the kind of risks you're usually taking on is a whole other ballgame, especially when that person doesn't make it through."

"I would have given anything to offer her another option, but…" Mac shook his head, his face still pale. "She had me dead to rights when she said that the lifeboats were too risky. We could have lost all of them. Her logic was air tight."

"Logic sucks, bud. I tell you that all the damn time." Jack smiled when Mac rolled his eyes and gave a slight snort.

"Is this how you felt when Kyle Brewer disobeyed your order and took on those men?"

"Pretty much," Jack nodded. He understood all too well what it was like to feel responsible for another person. It was a weight he carried daily. "But then I focused on feeling grateful for all my men that he saved, including me and especially you."

"Thanks, Jack." Mac nodded. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry...about all this."

"There's nothing to be sorry for, brother." Jack stood, stretching so that his back popped. If anything he was thankful Mac had come to him and not tried to work it out on his own. It gave him hope that he was finally making some progress in getting the kid to realize he didn't have to go solo with the hard stuff, that Jack was there for him no matter what the problem, be it absent fathers or just a really, really bad day. "In fact, I was hoping to catch up with you for a run this morning anyway, albeit this is a little earlier than I had in mind."

Mac 's brows drew together in disbelief. "What happened to your hangover?"

"I should be over that before you and I make it back to your place." Either that or he'd be dead. "It will give me a chance to work up an appetite for some of Bozer's French Toast. The star spy school student's supposed to be back today-right?"

Mac stood, still looking a bit shaky, but far better than he had when he'd shown up. "Yeah, but that's not until like eight or nine this morning."

"That's okay," Jack grinned. "It will probably take me that many hours to run eleven miles."

Mac folded his arms over his chest. "It's actually closer to thirteen."

"Really?" Mac nodded and Jack started to rethink his offer. Even on his hard days he was good to go seven. He'd do it for Mac, but maybe there was a better way to cheer his friend up without inflicting torment on Jack's old knees. "Then on second thought, how about we put the top down on the GTO and take a drive to the beach. We can grab some taquitos at the Gas-n-Go and watch the sun come up."

"Sounds great." Mac flashed a half decent grin. "But could we maybe get ice cream instead?"

"Rocky road?" Jack asked, easily recalling the kid's favorite.

Mac's grin faltered , but he gave a quick nod. "Rocky road will work just fine."

"Just give me a minute to change." Jack slapped Mac on the back as he started for his room. "The drive will give me a chance to tell you all about the con me, Riles and Sparky pulled off."

"Sparky, my robot?" Mac inquired after him.

"One in the same." Jack popped his head back around the corner, shooting his partner a big smile when the kid looked truly flabbergasted, which was worlds better than sad and guilt ridden. "By the way, remind me to ask you what size leather jacket you think the big spark plug might wear."

"You wouldn't." Mac gave his partner an incredulous stare.

"Oh I would, brother." He laughed, letting loose with a loud lonesome wolf howl. In fact, there wasn't a damn thing Jack Dalton could think of that he wouldn't do for his pack. "I most definitely would."

The End...for now.

PS guys: Tomorrow's live tweeting is an excellent time to show your love for the boys. All you have to do is put Plenkov or MacGyverWriters or MacGyver CBS or all three in your tweet and don't forget #MacGyver. Be sure to tell them what you love. Like: awesome Mac & Jack moment. Would love more focus on their partnership. Please let Santa take Cage to the North Pole-just kidding on this one. lol I won't be in for the show, but spread the word!


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